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Pure arrogance
We now know that Shire Hall fudged the numbers. The growth projections used to inform the regional waterworks master plan in 2025 were believed to be derived from expert analysis— expert advice. Instead, we now know that its growth forecasts were created by the former leadership team and inserted into the experts’ analysis “at the behest of Shire Hall staff at the time”.
The County’s consulting experts now disavow the growth projections used to inform the regional water master plan. They go further to say its data was misused.
In a startling moment during a council committee meeting last week, Watson & Associates washed their hands of any notion that population growth was ever going to be anywhere near 2.4 per cent per year in Prince Edward County.
“Our prior growth [projections] weren’t used correctly in the master plan,” said Sean-Michael Stephen, a managing director at Watson & Associates.
Yet there it was in document after document, presentation after presentation, month after month, offered to buttress the wildly expensive regional water plan—a plan that touted a massive infrastructure project bringing water from Lake Ontario in Wellington to Picton. It was offered as proof that new homebuilding was about to surge—not by a little, but by a lot. It was used to support spending hundreds of millions of dollars on waterworks infrastructure. To portray confidence that new homes would soon help fund the crushing expense.
It wasn’t true. We know that now. We know that Shire Hall put its thumb on the scale—to promote its preferred outcome.
Its population growth projections were never credible. Many people and organizations— including this newspaper— frequently pointed out the absurdity of the claim over the past five years. It was never plausible that a community whose population had changed little over the past 150 years was suddenly poised to absorb an unrelenting influx of new residents—thousands of newcomers arriving year after year.
Yet the made-up growth rate persisted. It altered decision-making and planning.
We might never have learned the truth but for a question from Councillor Roy Pennell last week. He wanted the consultant to explain why Council should believe Watson’s numbers now, after it had gotten population growth so wrong in the past.
Sean-Michael Stephens pushed back hard; he said that Shire Hall leadership (at the time) had told him to use its growth forecasts rather than Watson’s data in the regional master plan.
“Our growth projections were consistent with one per cent—what they are currently,” said Watson’s managing director.
But it raises tough questions: Where else did Shire Hall leadership shade the truth? Where else has it put its thumb on the scale to persuade Council and residents to spend gobs of money? Recklessly? How many forecasts have been compromised? And, critically, how do County residents continue to trust municipal reports are based on expert advice?
It has never been properly explained, for example, how, in 2014, a consultant found the preferred solution for Picton’s water supply to be a new intake and plant in Picton Bay, yet just a few years later the same consultant concluded the best way forward was a massively risky and expensive pipeline from Wellington.
Faithful readers will remember, too, the famous million square feet of commercial space that would soon rise out of the ground in Wellington—equal to six Costco-sized stores in the little village. It was another made-up number. There was no earthly basis for such a forecast—other than to backfill a plan that was full of holes.
Shire Hall has burned through its credibility on infrastructure renewal. Utterly and completely. It demonstrated that it could not be trusted to tell the truth on the most important decisions this community may ever face. Confidence has eroded.
It is also true that much of the senior leadership team has been replaced since then. And perhaps it is unfair to hold current leadership to account for past choices.
But here is the thing. Credibility is earned. It accumulates over decades and is lost in an instant. The actions of its previous leadership have seriously undermined Shire Hall’s credibility. It will take time to rebuild.
Oh, one more bit of advice to Shire Hall staff this week: pull way back on the patronizing warnings to Council that the province may step in if it balks at throwing hundreds of millions at its waterworks. The province created this problem—by walking away from municipal infrastructure funding. Shire Hall made it worse by colouring the truth.
It is a moment for some quiet reflection and humility in municipal halls, rather than frantic fingerpointing.
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